The Blind Man Sees Red!

As important as fine talents the likes of Gene Colan and Frank Miller have been to the development of the Daredevil comic book, it's easily arguable to me that the single most important artist in the history of the was Wally Wood. What Wood did was simply transform Daredevil from a musty looking superhero who might've dropped in out of the Golden Age into a sleek modern hero literally suited for the Silver Age. He did it with a single color -- red.

From his inception the design of Daredevil had played off his name by adorning his cowl with little horns. What Wally Wood did was to take that notion and give the character named "Devil" a deep rich color which evoked his name in all its glory. Soon after taking the helm Wood started diddling with the look and along with Stan Lee even made sure the hero got some high profile exposure in the Fantastic Four of all places and by fighting one of the greatest of all Marvel battles ever against the indomitable Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner. "The Man Without Fear" earned his nickname when he put it all on the line against the Sea King and there was no going back.

Despite small-ball but visually spectacular villains like the Stilt-Man, the comic was secure because watching DD in battle was exciting in itself.

Not all the stories made sense, but getting there was nearly all the fun. Daredevil was establishing himself as a hero who took on all comers and looked good doing it.

Wally Wood's tenure was brief though and ended when Bob Powell was brought aboard to finish Wood's layouts in the terrific two-parter featuring the debut of the villains who would be called the Ani-Men. These guys are all Wood, who wrote the first half of the two-part adventure. With that Wood left the book and a fellow named John Romita took the helm, no slouch himself.

Wally Wood stepped aboard the Daredevil comic book one more time, inking Frank Miller in a story from his epic run. It was a hearty reminder of the early days when Wally Wood had saved the comic from the dustbin of history.

It was then that Daredevil was established as the comic without fear.

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The Daredevil In Yellow!

Daredevil was the comic without fear. Marvel was on a dandy run, creating new heroes every month and growing in response to fan demand. Stan Lee had found a formula for success which leaned heavily on artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko for the hits which changed the face of comics and made the Silver Age profoundly different and profoundly modern. 

Taking the approach which had worked on Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, Lee turned to Bill Everett, the Golden Age creator of the Sub-Mariner. That lasted exactly one issue. Everett was a master in his time but his Daredevil look positively antique, well-crafted but of a different era.

Lee turned to EC veteran Joe Orlando to take up the slack and inked by Vince Colletta the comics looked more like what Marvel was doing elsewhere. 

Despite battling the borrowed Spidey villain Electro and running up against new foes like The Owl and The Purple Man, Daredevil seemed to be a comic which was sputtering. 

Even the soon-to-be-obligatory crossover with Spider-Man himself under the penciling hand of Steve Ditko himself only showed what might be missing from the Daredevil comic itself. The stories were good, but felt like stories which might've been produced a decade before. 

And then Joe Orlando's old partner Wally Wood took the helm of the book and brought a true-blue big name feel to a book which in truth had been put together by many qualified veterans. Wood brought something which had been missing despite all the good intentions -- excitement. Admittedly the Matador was an opponent inspired by Daredevil's little horns, but he did look good. Mr. Fear and his partners the Ox and the Eel were a blend of old and new but looked fresh nonetheless. 

But most importantly Wally Wood identified the problem with Daredevil pretty quickly -- the costume. The yellow and black and red fighting togs which DD had put together were right out of the Golden Age of comics, something you'd see someone on the Justice Society of America wear maybe.. Quickly  Wood added a bit of dash with another "D" to the chest symbol. Now Daredevil was "DD" formally for all the world to see. But Wally Wood wasn't done yet. More tomorrow.

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A Confidential Update!

Comic Book Confidential is a 1988 film about the purpose of comics and asks an important question, though rarely explicitly. Are comic books art? The film shows that the comics are a significant part of the American landscape, screwed down into the fabric of the culture. As one quirky interview after another unfolds, none exactly like the last (my favorite is one with Dan O'Neill where two buxom babes play pool throughout the discussion) but all of them taken in roughly chronological order as best can be found. The emphasis is clearly on comics of a superheroic nature, though thankfully not to distraction. It was fun to see a Stan Lee in good health and clear voice and Will Eisner too looked fresh as a daisy. Since these giants have gone on it's nifty to be reminded of them in their prime. That goes for Jack Kirby, Harvey Kurtzman, Al Feldstein, and Bill Gaines well. Frank Miller is still a youth, full of piss and vinegar. It's a nifty time capsule of a period when comics were thought to be dying a slow steady death but before the 90's utterly changed the game for all the players. 

I imagine most who might travel here have likely seen it, but I hadn't so maybe you are likewise. If  you'd like to do so here it is thanks to the miracle of Youtube. Enjoy!

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Night Of The Prowler!

If you've ever wondered what might happen if window washers turned bad the saga of the The Prowler is for you. Hobie Brown is an unhappy young black man, a window washer, a brave and inventive young chap who seeks to improve his lot by inventing newer and safer ways to wash windows in the towers of New York City.

Designed by John Romita, the Prowler is a slick looking character and hails from a time when villainy was still operating within a human range. Taking on a Spider-Man required no more apparently than some chutzpah, a few air-jets, and a dandy set of steel claws.

Hobie turns to crime as it offers the most expedient way he can make a name for himself. He's not evil, but does show some remarkable lack of perspective when he takes on Web-head. His actions seem to end in the death of Peter Parker, but we know all along that's not the case. So in one of the shortest criminal careers on record, the Prowler hangs up his claws.

That is until he decides to be a hero and takes off after Spider-Man again, this time seeing the Wall-Crawler as a menace. Hobie is a guy trying to make his way and grasping at a way to make a difference, but he's always making a mistake it seems.

But he does look snazzy in that costume, snazzy indeed. I've always assumed the design with the full face mask was done like the Black Panther, in order to disguise the ethnic nature of the character and so not agitate witless folks in certain regions of the country who would be unhappy promoting a new black hero. Times have changed...I hope.

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Snakes In The Glass!

These are two of my all-time favorite comic books. Underneath the Marie Severin cover above we find an Avengers team drawn by veteran inker Frank Giacoia. Apparently Giacoia didn't like to pencil, but preferred what he considered the less onerous task of inking.

But as the page above showcases, he's pretty dang good.  With Sam Grainger on inks his is a very handsome issue with some nifty panel designs. But when it comes to artwork the next issue is the absolute gem.

If you waterboarded me and forced me to pick only one cover as my favorite this one might be it. Outstanding and dramatic composition by John Buscema with sterling inks by Tom Palmer. If I could only have one art team they are the team. The Avengers have never (and I include George Perez in this) looked better than when Buscema and Palmer busted out for an amazing sequence of comics.

Now I haven't said much about the story so far. But in this one we meet for the first time Monica Lynne, the lady who will become a romantic interest for the Black Panther. The story stars the Panther as he takes on a new incarnation of the Sons of the Serpent. The story revolves around to TV hosts, one white and one black  but both vituperative and more than willing to stoke the racial animus which percolates at all times in American society. Roy Thomas says quite a bit and says it quite well about the power of mass media to move attitudes and form opinion. Something we need to pay more attention to even in our own time. Oh the Avengers win, but you knew that.

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Falcon - The Green And The Gold!

In the Golden Age Captain America's partner was a youngster named Bucky. But in the Silver Age and beyond it was a man named Sam Wilson who fought crime alongside Cap as "The Falcon". I was in the front row for the Falcon's debut and saw him don his distinctive green and gold togs for the very first time to help Cap whomp up on those disgruntled former allies of the Red Skull, the mean and nasty Exiles.

As the original artwork for the issue shows, the costume was originally to have featured short pants. I'm pretty much pleased they decided not to go that direction.

It was part of a long yarn in which the Red Skull had used the Cosmic Cube to transfer his consciousness into Cap's body and vice versa. Bereft of his "Super-Soldier" might the Living Legend had to resort to his wits and on a brave young black man from the heart of Harlem who was especially good with falcons. His affinity with one falcon in particular named Redwing. He had been hired by the Exiles, ignorant of their true nature and now was fighting against them to help the natives on their island escape their thrall.

Cap saw the potential and had Sam Wilson put together some fighting togs and off they went to fight crime. I've always preferred these original colors and I consider the falconer's glove an essential element.

The defeated the over-confident Red Skull and then were shifted back to the United States where they parted company. Cap to seek a different direction and the Falcon to pursue his new one -- fighting for his people on the streets and alleys of Harlem.

They fought together again, when a gang dubbed "The Diamond Heads" had the Falcon on the run for his life. Cap came along just in time to help defeat the enemy and it's probably then that a new idea was beginning to grow.

It would take many months later when A.I,M. attached Cap himself on the streets of Harlem by using an android to knock down the old buildings and gain some short-sighted support from the denizens that Cap and the Falcon fought together again. They defeated the schemes of the enemy and then Cap made Falcon on offer he couldn't refuse.

And then something quite radical happens. The Falcon's name joins Cap's on the cover (though the official title of the comic never changes) and that would be the way it would be for many years to come. Captain America and the The Falcon were a team for the times. The Living Legend in red, white, and blue and social worker Sam Wilson in his vibrant green and gold. 

They end up fighting for and against SHIELD when one of its agents turns himself into a ferocious giant gorilla and they all end up fighting the Mole Man and his minions deep beneath the surface of the Earth.

The only time I recollect that the green and gold Falcon appeared outside of the Captain America comic was in an issue of the Avengers when the team took on Psyklop thanks to the imagination of Harlan Ellison among others.

Already Sam Wilson is begining to chafe at the partnership when he feels it necessary to track down Spider-Man on his own. Gene Colan leaves the title in the middle of his tale and Johnny Romita steps in. The Falcon has never looked better than he did when Romita drew him during this era. Romita has a real knack for drawing handsome black men and women.

Stan feels the need to introduced a real sideswipe to the proceedings when he has Cap become an undercover rookie policeman. It's an interesting callback to the Golden Age when he was a buck private under the heel of an abusive non-com. Here Officer Rogers gets dressed down by a cat named Muldoon.

The Falcon and Cap find their way to working together again when the Gray Gargoyle whips up a zany scheme to get control of some secret element which will give him power enough for world domination, or so he thinks before Cap and Falc send him into orbit for a few rotations. This one features a spaceship made of stone and that's enough to make any good comic book and sci-fi fan shake his head.

The green and gold Falcon makes his last hoorah fighting on the streets of Harlem and alongside Cap when they try to stop a race riot from breaking out. This is a humdinger of a giant-size story and features the old Red Skull, inexplicably back for more. It's fitting he's the villain that the original Falcon goes out on. The cover gives a hint of what's to come.

In the very next issue we see the new red and white Falcon. I guess the powers thought his costume was more complimentary alongside Cap's classic look, but will always prefer the green and the gold.

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How Sharper Than A Serpent's Son!

The Sons of the Serpent debuted in the pages of Avengers #32, presented for the first time by Stan Lee and Don Heck. This mob of racist slobs tricked out in ophidian finery pop out of the bushes and begin to threaten everyone around them. Also a certain Chinese representative named  General Chang shows up at the United Nations and starts to bellow about the inadequacies of the American system of government. 

While these political feints are underway Hank Pym at the time a Goliath stranded at ten feet in height finds a worthy and capable lab assistant in one Bill Foster, who debuts in this comic. It just so happens that Bill Foster is a black man (weirdly colored gray as was the custom at Marvel at the time) and despite wearing what looks like for all the world like a waiter's uniform is helpful to Pym in his search for a respite from his giant size. But then Foster is attacked by the racist Serpents and Pym and the Avengers in a righteous anger decide to bring the group to heel. Having played his limited role as motivation Foster promptly disappears from the story until the next issue. 

In that next issue Captain America is captured by the Serpents and they use his captivity to extract all sorts of things from the Avengers, not the least of which is a public proclamation in support of some of the Serpent activity. This sends public opinion into a tailspin as the people of these United States are whipsawed around from an support of the racist ideology to rejection of the Serpent notions depending on how they perceive the Avengers to be standing. Bill Foster shows back up and is stunned by the seeming support and for reasons utterly unknown to me is not brought into the overall strategy.  Ultimately Cap is rescued by Hawkeye with help from Black Widow and the team rounds up the Serpents and makes all right the world when they reveal that the top Serpent is...gasp...General Chen. (We knew that all the time of course.)

I want to like these stories more than I do. The art by Don Heck is pure but his storytelling breaks down in a few places and I'm wondering if the script was doctored after the fact. There seems to be a clear rejection of the ideas of racism and nativism which the Serpents pronounce but the  way the public seems so gullible is bothersome to me. Maybe I don't want to believe that people could so easily fall under the spell of a self-righteous demagogue who spouts hatred for foreign peoples but then maybe I should wake up and smell the coffee. The Serpents cast their spell easily enough in these issues which propel at a rapid pace, but those notions seems all the ready to catch hold in this real world too. But like the real world, their threat is not ended. A comic book taught me that. The Sons of the Serpent will return. More on that later.

And if the name  Bill Foster didn't ring a bell, then all I have to say is two words -- "Black Goliath". 

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